of how to do this, i think the next clerk and the city will be much informed with having our process and having our archives to look too. >> and that is how san francisco government worked out the kinks, twists and turns, bombs in the road, to select its new interim mayor, ed lee. san francisco's first asian- american mayor. >> this has been an unprecedented and historic transition of power here in san francisco. i am so happy the board of supervisors came together to select an outstanding choice along many outstanding candidates to lead us over the next several years. >> over the past several months when this issue has come up, it had been agonizing. the board has been put into a difficult situation. there are a lot of differences of opinion on how to run the city, how to mass make a decision, who should be in place, 11 people to agree on

that is a challenging thing. i think we have done the best we can do in the process, considering the difference of opinions. >> the people of san francisco can now choose their mayor, the direction they want to go. that is why this decision was so appropriate. >> the other big shock is that the moderates seem to have won this round. people thought, progressives have themselves on the board. there is no reason that they will not get together and take a noted leader who is a progressive to be interim mayor, and then stayed there for another term. the great thing about being in term mayor is to get to run as an incumbent. the fact that the progressives could not get together to get somebody into office as interim mayor in their own self-interest was very surprising for a lot of us. >> what happened in the last month in city hall was an incredible show of democracy that was part policy, part politics, and it all came

together, and more than anything -- not just from a reporter's perspective, often was this? but there was a public interest as well on what was going on in san francisco government. we take it for granted a law that there is a city government here. this was something that brought people together. you heard people talking about it at the cafes, park playground, people who do not always pay attention. in that $0.10, it was the best thing we could have done for city government, even though it was a little bit messy. it was a lot of fun and an eye opener. it got people interested again.

>> i never thought i would be at a press conference in the city surrounded by a bunch of pickup trucks. here we are. these are no average pickup trucks. these have solid green credentials. san francisco has a long history of groundbreaking initiatives an enlargement of victories. this is where the latest bring innovations have been, whether

it is pursuing our zero ways to goals by 2020, when the reducing toxics in san francisco, whether it is becoming the electric vehicle capital of the u.s., this is where green innovation happens. and we practice what we preach in san francisco. every city of san francisco's department is required to develop a department action plan annually, which inventory their own emissions and sets common action targets for the department. this process engages departments that do not typically considered themselves and are mentally focused and effectively makes the link between in one of the responsibility and the financial bottom line the efficiency. requiring each city department to be responsible for the carbon footprint helps integrate the city's climate work into all levels of organizational functioning and incentivizes all employees to participate in this process. the program that we are going to

announce today will help make our individual departments sweet -- more sustainable and help us meet the goals from our climate action plans. additionally, plugging hybrid technology and its electric vehicles represent a good start towards achieving the new fuel efficiency standards that were just announced by president obama, a 54.5 miles to the gallon. this was announced when president obama noted, just as cars will go farther on a gallon of gas, our economy move will farther on a barrel of oil. when we achieve the 54.5 mpg target, it will reduce consumption from our vehicles by 40% and cut in half the amount of greenhouse gas solutions coming out of our exhaust pipe. the electric vehicles, as you may well now, building up the electric vehicle capital here in san francisco is one of mayor lee's top anbar mental priorities. we are honored to be partnering

with chrysler and the u.s. department of energy to push forward with yet another dimension of electric transportation. but first, without further ado, i would like to introduce chrysler's senior manager to tell you more about the program and to make a special presentation to mayor lee. >> good afternoon, everybody. thank you for the warm welcome, mr. mayor. beautiful weather, beautiful city. on behalf of chrysler, i am proud to present the mayor and the city of san francisco with the supply and hybrid trucks. these trucks are part of a grant received from the department of energy to demonstrate technology and further enhance the ability of engineering

organizations to implement this technology and future applications to be a part of the green energy that chrysler and bodies and to support the recently announced fuel economy rolling. we are proud to be in partnership with the mayor, and we are looking forward to work with your team over the next few years to demonstrate the technology and to learn from how they will dry data and further enhance the ability to demonstrate these applications. thank you very much. i look forward to working with your team. [applause] >> thank you. we are just commenting, as your walking up, he has been in the auto industry for quite some years. i have been working in government for some years and we are both tried to find our youth in what we do. it is need to work on something

that is fun, that is great for our country, that is very much a part of this movement that the whole country is not interested in, getting off of foreign oil and making sure we do something for our environment. this is fun because you are looking at 14 pickup trucks that have in them a hemi engine, but powered by electricity. these 14 pickup trucks will be lent to us for the next three years or free, thanks to our department of energy and their grants with chrysler's own contributions put together to allow for our city to devote one of the few cities organized across this. i know sacramento will have some of this. other states, there is only less

than a handful of other states participating in this nice experiment. for san francisco, we are probably going to be one of the hilliest cities that have this opportunity over the next three years to test these electric trucks in the most hardened ways. in other words, we are going to have department of public work'' picking up trash in these vehicles, the bureau of engineering to be looking at and traveling to all parts of the city in these vehicles, managing the projects in this city, thanks to our city engineer. different departments under our acting city administrator, including, interestingly enough, animal care and control. they will be caring for stray animals, making sure they are safely transported, and the day from our streets and into shelters, and so forth. the puc, police department,

real-estate department, a multitude of some 14 departments, that will have the chance to use these trucks and the way in which they operate. the very essence of city fleet operations. so i want to thank chrysler for allowing sanfrancisco to experiment with our department of energy, and also while we are experimenting with this, we have uc-davis as a partner. we have the director of our plugged in demonstration project. working together with the transportation electrification institute here. with their corporations, getting the data about how these vehicles are used, how they are tested, whether they can go up hills as efficiently, bringing up the cargo and animals and

tool that dpw will use, various departments inspecting buildings, streets, all of the different uses for a city fleet, all on the dime of the department of energy because they want to see these the electric vehicle properly used, the way that we use our fleet generally now. ali, they will be replacing the fleet that we are using now and saving that money. and then do what i do, i keep in mind -- i do not ever want to run out of the electric power. as i come to city hall, i asked my staff, plug it in. i try not to use any oil so that we can try to do this in the cleanest way possible. that makes it fun. it is a bit of a game that i play with our staff, but that is a game that everyone is playing with these cars.

making sure they can go the whole day without using a drop of oil. that makes it fun and challenging and keeps my mind up to use the vehicles in the proper way. it is a corporate for san francisco to do this. we declared some two years ago, in cooperation with all nine counties in the bay area, we want to be the rv -- ev capital of the world. we are doing everything necessary to make sure that we are. with the cooperation of great cities like san jose and oakland, san jose and alameda counties, we are already putting in the anxiety-recharging stations all over the bay area. in fact, the airport already has 14 charges already installed at the airport, and we have, by

the end of the summer, some 43 charging stations in our garages that are already being done. by the end of the year, working together with charge. america, coolant technologies, we will have 100 charging station within san francisco already installed. so you will not have any anxiety. one of those is in the mayor's crotch, and that will be installed in the next couple of weeks. these fast charter will be out there in a public setting. with charge. america, in the bay area, they are doing charging stations for the residents and another in the public sector for the whole bay area. so we're getting rid of that anxiety quickly and making sure that all of the automobile manufacturers, including chrysler, can develop these beat

-- vehicle the best they can, use the data, test pilot them, but ultimately, i think we will see companies like chrysler bring to market an electric vehicles for all of our citizens to use, and every city fleet is doing so. we are working with the company throughout the bay area. we are all experimenting on the different flight uses of this. this is the first time i have seen or course trucks -- really, the dpw's of the world, puc's of the world, all of the utility- driven departments in our city, to carry equipment, cargo, transport trash and all the other thing that we do, these are the workhorses. this is going to be a great test and use of federal funding. i have to say -- i have to make sure i say this.

i am happy for this moment because president obama just signed this very important debt ceiling settlement with congress. the senate and house voted on it. leader pelosi was extremely grave in her performance, getting a number of democrats to sign this. i would be looking sad, even in light of this great news, we have to keep this country moving forward. we will not have the opportunity to use the technology that chrysler is offering if we are not strong in our economics. so we are doing it right. now that we have the debt ceiling behind us, we can move forward on all these programs. i want to thank the department of the environment. alan, you are gracious in your remarks, but the department of environment keeps me up with great ideas, keeps me talking constantly about one beacon do as a city, how we can contribute to our environment. the department of the in gardening keeps me on my toes to

say what can we create? so i want to thank chrysler, the department of energy, for their grants, the uc-davis, their work with the electrification transportation education program, to make sure that we test these things correctly. if we test them right, if we use our knowledge and experience the data here, we are going to have the best performing automobiles developed by the companies that have a great interest in saving us from oil and making sure that our country moves in the right direction. this is our new economy, one that i am proud to say we are doing across major cities across the country. but we in san francisco want to lead the way. we want to be the experimenters, the ones that push out this idea that we can do it in the bay area. if we do it here, it sends a trend across the country that

they can do it elsewhere. get ourselves off of oil, into a more pollution-free society. i just thank all the people working together on this. it takes everybody working together to line up not only our educational institution with us, car manufacturers with the stimulus package fund from the government, and with our own local leaders to make sure we are doing the right thing. again, thank you very much for using your many years of leadership in the auto industry to bring forth new technology, new ways of doing things. thank you for your partnership with our department of the environment as well and department of energy. [applause] >> we would like to take questions from the press regarding the electric vehicles, but i wanted to mention the

sound system is being powered off of the battery from one of these trucks. so this is emission-free power from the public utility commission. all these trucks are equipped with an extra battery to run equipment. we want to let the media know there is an opportunity to do test runs in these trucks. there are two other individuals available for questions. we have a director of plug in vehicle research center at uc- davis. we also have jason connolly from the department of energy. he is the product manager for the chrysler pev project. now we will get questions from the press. >> [inaudible] >> how long do you charge it?

[inaudible] >> [inaudible] >> it depends on how you drive it. for the first 50 miles, that is the charge to peak cycle. that is when you are in a state of charge or the vehicle will be a regular hybrid vehicle. then you can charge it as often as you would like after. we are recommending that you drive twice a day. chieonce it goes into the chargg station, the truck driver, you get 22 mpg.

chrysler does not at this point have any production plans but is an enabler to implement this technology, modify technology come into other applications. it could be an electric vehicle or hybrid vehicle or a plugged and hybrid vehicle. that is the purpose of this demonstration program. >> [inaudible] >> it is in comparison to the existing fleet vehicles. i give you numbers on the economy, how much vehicles would be consuming, their fuel efficiency. again, mr. mayor, you have 14 vehicles. >> when you look at the 14 conventional pickup trucks that will be replaced these 14th london hybrid trucks, they will

burn 7000 fewer gallons of gasoline a year, save $25,000 in fuel cost, and avoid 91 tons of carbon emissions each year. so very significant. >> there is another piece of technology that these vehicles have that nobody else has to date. they are able to generate ac power, 110 volts and 21 portable, up to 6.2 kilowatts of ac power. that makes the vehicle a mobile generator, in essence. the of the technology we have is we are linked to the smart bridge interface. that is up to mind when you charge the vehicle, based on the best available electricity rate. you can also a blow the power back to the power grid, through the reverse power flow. if the great need our, you can charge at the lowest rate, and then when the power grid needs power, you can upload it back.

basically, selling power to the electronic company. so all of this combined with the regular conventional hybrid technology are all the enablers that we have with chrysler. >> [inaudible] >> chrysler has already announced that we will have the fiat 500 electric vehicle in production next year. >> thank you. we are now going to do the test drives in the truck. thank you.

>> hello. welcome to "culturewire." we are here today with bay area artist jody chanel, and we are here to see the plaza where your piece has just been installed. >> i have been doing large-scale paintings in the galleries and museums, and the idea that in the future, i could do something that would hang out a little bit longer than the duration of the installation the kind of appeal to me. i quickly found out about the san francisco arts commission school and realized there was a pre-qualified school you had to apply to, so i applied to the.

>> how long did it take you to develop this work for the plaza? >> this was a fast track project. design development was about a month. >> let's look at the beautiful mural. i have never seen a mural created on asphalt. >> the heat of the asphalt, a new layer of asphalt. then, these wire rope templates that were fabricated for the line work get laid down and literally stamped into the asphalt, and then everything was hand-painted. >> maybe you could talk about some of the symbolism, maybe starting in the middle and working out. >> [inaudible] the flower of industry. >> it is like a compass.

there's an arrow pointing north. >> within the great bear consolation, there are two pointed stars here. they typically lead one to the northstar, otherwise known as polaris. so i thought it has a layer of theme. >> let's talk about some of the other elements in the peace. we are walking along, and there is a weather vane. there's a sweet little bird hanging on the side. what kind of bird is that? >> [inaudible] the smallest of the gulf species, and it lives around the bay area. >> you want to talk about the types of flour patterns that you send? >> [inaudible] around 1926 or so by the dahlia society.

>> what is this bird here? >> that is the california quail. >> coming up here, we had a little blustery theme. what is this area here? >> this is supposed to be the side view, the expense of the golden gate bridge. >> there it is. >> there are really beautiful elements of architecture still around, i would say that it gives that feeling over to the work. >> what are your hopes for it? >> that in a way it just becomes part of the area. i think it is starting to have that feeling. people utilize it. they sit and, and have their lunch and play on -- they sit and, and have their lunch and play on that -- they sit and